MB Saucy Side: 500 Reasons Why (Featuring Sally) (Patreon)

Salome Alavidze is not perfect.

If you had fallen in love with her the customary way—meeting via a dating app or mutual friends as adults, ambushed by quick-fluttering stomach butterflies of infatuation—then you might have believed she was perfect, at least in the beginning. But you met Sally when you were young, back when “love” was limited to watercolor impression given by Disney movies and desire was a theoretical of which you possessed zero knowledge.

So, no, you never thought that Sally was perfect. You grew up exposed to her imperfections. Her clingy, crybaby nature in elementary school; her braces and nerdy cattiness in junior high. The way that, in high school, she obsessed over the fact that her left breast was a different shape than her right breast and wondered if that rendered her unlovable.

You know Sally’s flaws and insecurities, but they only make you love her all the more. How often does love like that come around, after all? The type of love where you know someone’s past and present so well that envisioning the future together comes as easily as breathing.

Sometimes, however, Sally needs reassurance.

You drop the printed pages on Sally’s desk, the thick stack landing with an audible thunk that causes Sally to finally notice your presence. She turns from her canvas (the impressionist painting is either the beginnings of a fruit bowl or boat), splatters of half-dried paint most of her exposed skin.

“What’s all this?” she asks, staring quizzically at the twenty-plus pages. “Don’t tell me it’s tax season already.”

“A list,” you explain, “of all the reasons that I love you.”

“Why would you—” Sally breaks off, her hazel eyes widening. “Is this because what I said last night?”

You nod.

“I was joking,” she says. “Like I told you yesterday, I don’t really think that you just settled for me.”

Despite her words, her smile has the same forced quality as last night, and she avoids fully meeting your gaze. (Sally thinks that staring at someone’s forehead tricks them into thinking she’s making eye contact, and maybe it does for most people, but not you. You know her too well.)

You decide not to respond to her protest and instead push the list forward so she can read the first thirty-four reasons printed on the first page.

“Seriously, this is sweet,” Sally says, “and I do appreciate the effort! But you didn’t need to do this.” Her apologetic look slips into an amused smile as her eyes land on reason number one.

“‘I love you because you love arguing,’” she reads with a small laugh. “Hey, that’s not true!”

You cross your arms and stare at her pointedly.

“Maybe it’s a little true,” Sally concedes. She looks back down at the list. “‘Reason number two: I love you because you can admit when you’re wrong.’” Her brows lift with surprise. “Huh, and here I thought that I was supposed to be the Precog. You knew exactly how this conversation would go, didn’t you?”

You smile at her. “I know you.”

“‘Reason number three . . .’ ” Sally’s reading is interrupted as you go to stand behind her chair, your arms wrapping around her shoulders and your chin resting atop her head.

“Keep going,” you prod.

Sally strives to ignore you as you twine your fingers through her curls. “‘Reason number three,’” she reads, “‘you make super cute sounds when I do this.’” She pauses. “What’s—”

She yelps as you lower your lips to her neck. Her skin tastes like paint and sweat, but you gently suck long enough to leave a mark and for her surprised squeak to turn into a needy whine.

“Keep reading.”

She shivers as you whisper into her ear.

“‘Reason number four,’” she says, voice quivering, “‘you’re passionate.’”

You prove the point with your hands, letting them migrate from Sally’s shoulders to brush against the sides of her breasts. She moans and leans back into you, but you keep your touch light and teasing. She tilts her head backwards to gaze pleadingly at you, but you simply smile.

“Keep reading,” you order.

Sally groans but returns to the paper. “‘Reason number five: you’re surprisingly obedient.’” She laughs. “I’m not sure whether I should be offended by the ‘obedient’ part or the ‘surprisingly’.”

“Neither,” you reply. “Look back up at me.”

She obliges, and you take the opportunity to seize her lips in an upside-down kiss. The angle is awkward, with her neck stretched back and you hunched over, but comfort is a secondary concern compared to the need to feel close.

Sally gasps against your lips. “Can we . . .”

“. . . Read the rest of the list later?” you finish, kneeling beside her. “Of course, right after you read out reason six.”

She groans again, the sound husky and petulant, glaring at you heatedly before reading the next item. “‘Reason number six: you are endearingly impatient.’ Okay, hotshot, so you know me. But I wouldn’t be so impatient if you didn’t deliberately tease m—”

She lets out another adorable squeak as your hands slip beneath the hem of her painter’s smock to undo the bra clasp beneath. Sally may bemoan her breasts not being a perfect set, but to you they’re as wonderfully unique as the woman to whom they belong.

Sally helps you pull off her undershirt and remaining clothes, neither of you able to wait to reach the bedroom. Her overeager assistance is awkward and clumsy, adorable and endearing: her elbow gets trapped in a sleeve; her bra clasp catches on the fabric of her shirt. By the time the task is completed, both of you are giggling like teenagers despite the fact you’ve been married for ten years.

The papers on which the list is printed scatter, pushed aside by Sally's arm and fluttering to the floor of her art studio as you both repurpose the desk for a more urgent engagement than reading. 

“Reason number seven,” you recite against her lips, “I love you because you’re affectionate.”

“Reason number eight: I love you because no matter how hard you try to style your hair, your curls are as stubborn as you are.”

“Reason number seventeen: I love how you begin Christmas shopping in July.”

“Reason number twenty-four: I love that you punched Brad Throckmorton in the nose because he was bullying me, even though he was three times your size and two grades above us.”

“Reason number thirty-eight: I love that you wear a different perfume every day of the week.”

“Reason forty-two: I love that you stick store-bought cinnamon rolls in the oven two minutes before company arrives and then try to pass them off as your own homemade recipe.”

“Reason fifty . . .”

Sally arches, and you gasp. Best to skip ahead a few hundred reasons, because neither of you will last through the entire list.

“Reason fifty: I love you because you taught me to love myself.”